Always Craving Memoirs ✼
We are memoir junkies here. Below are some of our favorites. Let us know if you agree with our picks—and if you have favorites not on this list.
John Bayley, Elegy For Iris
Beautiful memoir by Bayley about life with his wife, the late novelist Iris Murdoch, and how the two of them fell in love and created a creative, unorthodox life together, and subsequently managed her last few years, as she struggled with Alzheimers. There are no flabby sentences here.
Lisa Brennan-Jobs, Small Fry
Beautifully written and poetic. You won’t like Steve Jobs much after reading this memoir, but you will be blown away by how well his daughter writes and how resilient she was in the face of his bad and sometimes very strange behavior.
Adrienne Brodeur, Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover and Me
Hard to put down. Brodeur writes about how her mother shamelessly enmeshed her in a decades-long love affair with her stepfather’s best friend. Brodeur comes from a family of writers. Her beautiful descriptions of cooking and life on Cape Cod are as delicious to read as the unsavory sections about her mother’s affair.
Keggie Carew, Dadland
A loving memoir about Carew’s relationship with her Dad, who was a funny, charming father and British special forces soldier who had trouble adjusting to civilian life post-WWII. Harrowing scenes of Carew’s memories of life with her mother, who was mentally ill.
Robert Caro, Working
A wonderful memoir about Caro’s obsessions with Robert Moses, Lyndon Johnson, and his writing life. Listen to it on Audible for the full effect.
Jill Ciment, The Body In Question
Glennon Doyle, Untamed.
Doyle’ third memoir is an easy and optimistic read. Melton is long past her addictive behavior (drinking, bulimia) and has settled into life with new wife Abby Wambach. The portion of the book that details how they met and fell in love are the most moving and beautifully written parts of the book. Doyle learned to listen to her inner voice and is happier now than she was when she wrote her earlier memoirs, which is lovely to read, but makes the story less gripping.
Glennon Doyle Melton, Love Warrior
Doyle Melton was bulimic, alcoholic, and unhappy in her marriage. She shares all.
Glennon Doyle Melton, Carry On, Warrior: The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life
More from Melton. She writes about the challenges and deterioration of her marriage, as well as her emergence as a terrific writer. After the book was published, she married the two-time Olympic gold medalist and FIFA Women's World Cup Champion, Abby Wambach.
Donald Hall, Carnival of Losses: Notes Nearing Ninety
Oh, this book. What a great, feisty memoir by the late great poet, who loved his second wife (the poet Jane Kenyon), a beautiful young woman who died of leukemia and was once his student at the University of Michigan. Hall had worried that because of their age difference, he would leave Kenyon a widow, but she died at 47 and he lived decades without her. He remembers her presence and her poetry with yearning, detail and lust. Hall was nearing 90 when he wrote this book and it is amazing how sharp and funny and tough he can be, on other poets and himself.
Bess Kalb, Nobody Will Tell You This
Wonderful memoir about her late, indefatigable grandmother, who loved her, criticized her, nurtured her, counseled her, chided her, took her shopping and speaks to her from the grave. Funny, engaging and bracingly candid in parts, the book would have benefitted from more insight into the grandmother’s relationship with Kalb’s mother, who became a psychiatrist. We couldn’t put it down.
Caroline Knapp, Drinking: A Love Story. Beautiful story about what it’s like to drink too much but still be able to write about it. Knapp, the daughter of a psychiatrist, writes an almost perfect book about what it’s like to grow up in an attractive, intellectual family where needs were not met.
Anne LaMott, Almost Everything: Notes on Hope
There's nobody more astute about surviving a dysfunctional family.
Ariel Leve, An Abbreviated Life
Author’s NYC artist mother has borderline personality disorder. Unnerving, compelling read.
Ariel Levy, The Rules Do Not Apply
Hair-raising memoir by New Yorker writer who miscarries in Eastern Europe.
Primo Levi: Survival in Auschwitz
Brutal, brilliant, beautifully detailed book about how Levi survived Auschwitz, almost day by day.
Hisham Matar, The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between
Gorgeous memoir about Matar’s search for his father and his memories of their family’s life in Libya.
Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times. Making the best of slow, cold winter and al the feelings it stirs up.
JR Moehringer, The Tender Bar
Loving, funny memoir about a guy who was raised by a single mother and grew up in a bar.
Yiyun Li, Dear Friend, From My Life, I Write to You in Your Life
Writer has nervous breakdown and writes her way out of it by reading and writing about great books.
Phillip Lopate, A Mother’s Tale
Lopate teaches creative non-fiction at Columbia, taped conversations with his mother before she died and wrote a memoir about it.
Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House
Machado’s disturbing, poetic and occasionally funny memoir about the emotionally abusive relationship she had with another woman writer.
Joyce Maynard, The Best of Us
Loving memoir about Maynard’s second marriage to nice man who dies. At Home in the World, riveting and powerful memoir about Maynard’s affair with JD Salinger; she dropped out of Yale to go live with him in New Hampshire.
Daniel Mendelsohn: An Odyssey: A Father, a Son and an Epic
Wonderful, loving story about a son and his father, with great explanation and analysis of Homer’s The Odyssey, which Mendelsohn teaches at Bard College.
Scholastique Mukasonga, Cockroaches
Mukasonga, who grew up a Tutsi in Rwanda, escaped the genocide because her family sent her and her brother away to study — and by doing so, saved them. The rest of the family was killed. This is one of the most beautifully written memoirs we've read—and despite the horrendous subject matter, often funny and wry. Check out Mukasonga's gorgeous short story, Cattle Praise Song, and Deborah Treisman's interview with her. G
Sigrid Nunez, Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag
Nunez was Sontag’s assistant and the girlfriend of Sontag’s son. Up close and personal look at what it was like to live with and work for Sontag, at her best, worst and in her prime.
Susan Orlean, The Library Book. Fabulous story about the history of the LA library and the fire that was set to it. Orlean brings the many historical figures who worked at library come to life on the page. Much better than it sounds.
Nina Riggs, The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying. Exquisite, funny and magically uplifting story about one woman’s efforts to live and laugh, while dying.
Judith Ruskay Rabinor, The Girl in the Red Boots: Making Peace with My Mother. Rabinor, a therapist who specializes in eating disorders and mother-daughter relationships, writes beautifully about her own efforts to reconcile her conflicted feelings about her mother.
Iliana Regan, Burn the Place
Funny, wry and occasionally shocking memoir about Regan’s evolution from rebellious farm girl to sophisticated cook.
Ruth Reichl: Save Me the Plumbs: My Gourmet Memoir; For You, Mom, Finally: Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise
In these three books, Reichl writes beautifully about editing Gourmet magazine, working for Sy Newhouse and Conde Naste, managing and channeling her bipolar mother, learning to appreciate food from her loving father, and writing restaurant reviews for the New York Times.
Anne Roiphe, 1185 Park Avenue
Engrossing story about Roiphe’s family of origin. Despite their wealth and grand apartment, her parents’ were miserable and Roiphe’s father could be downright cruel, but the details about how they navigated their relationship and raised their children are fascinating. You wouldn’t want to be them, but you will enjoy reading about them.
Dani Shapiro, Inheritance
Memoir about Shapiro’s discovery that her father was not her biological father. Shapiro’s power is in making the ordinary, extraordinary, and vice versa. She is also the author of the memoirs Hourglass, Time, Memory, Marriage; Still Writing and Devotion.
David Sedaris, Calypso
A book of essays that adds up to a memoir. Sedaris’s mother was an alcoholic and one of his sisters committed suicide but the book manages to be funny, despite the dark and disturbing confessions. In "Why Aren't You Laughing?," Sedaris paints a loving portrait of his mother, who, despite her alcoholic rages and self-destructive tendencies, was a master storyteller who sent her children loving notes and money when they needed it. If you don't want to read the whole book, here are links to "Why Aren't You Laughing?", and "Now We Are Five." You can listen to Sedaris read "Now We Are Five" on This American Life.
Jill Soloway, She Wants It: Desire, Power and Toppling the Patriarchy
Soloway, the creator of "Transparent" and "I Love Dick," is a genius at writing dialogue. She deftly recreates the scene where her father shares that he is trans (he tells her over the phone one morning while she is watching her younger son eat cereal.) Her efforts to process this news triggered the creation of "Transparent" and her own transitioning journey. (Soloway, the mother of two, eventually left her husband, began dating women, and now prefers to be called "they.") You can read an excerpt from the book here.
William Styron, Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness
A classic. Styron writes with detachment and wonder at how he descended into depression and recovered.
Christie Tate, Group: How One Therapist and a Circle of Strangers Saved My Life. Intense deep dive into Tate’s work, sex and emotional life as she navigates group therapy, law school, relationships with men who don’t shower, are addicted to video games and/or are married. Tate ultimately finds happiness through work, marriage and motherhood.
Mary L. Trump, Too Much is Never Enough. Well-written, intimate look at life as a Trump. You wouldn’t want to grow up in this family but Mary Trump’s memories of their childhood together are fascinating.
Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, The Undocumented Americans. Brilliant, sassy memoir about what it’s like to be young, smart, and undocumented. The author ultimately makes her way to Harvard and Yale.
Qian Julie Wang, Beautiful Country
Gorgeous and harrowing story about Wang’s family’s decision to leave China and move to New York City without documentation. Painfully detailed insights into the deterioration of her parents’ marriage as they left behind careers as academics and found work in sweatshops, sushi factories, restaurants and law firms. The family cat, Marilyn, is a major character.
Jennifer Weiner, Hungry Heart: Adventures in Life, Love & Art
Wonderful collection of essays. Author’s father was mentally ill psychiatrist who became crack addict; author’s mother came out in middle age, after four kids. In addition to writing about her parents, Weiner writes about rowing crew at Princeton and getting thrown off the team for being overweight, the influence of John McPhee on her writing, her pregnancies and miscarriage, her kids, her marriage, her sister, her battles on Twitter and her beautiful, brilliant career as a novelist writing about and for women.
Tara Westover, Educated: A Memoir
It's shocking how the author managed to overcome so many obstacles to her education by a family that did its best to thwart her. Westover is a genius at recreating scenes of physical abuse by her brother and emotional neglect and manipulation by her parents, as well as beautiful scenes that detail her love of learning and the professors who mentored her. Westover says she taught herself how to write memoir by listening to The New Yorker podcasts.
